Artist Type: Featured

William Coleman (known as Bill) was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1922. He studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and then went on to study for six years under George Bell. Coleman married Benita-Amalie Coleman. He worked as a photolithographic and cartographic artist, creating illustrations for books such as the ‘Natural History Picture Book for Children’ in 1961. He also worked at Minton’s Art Pottery where he designed tiles and plates. His paintings are stylized with simple and angular forms, and invites comparison to the work of Robert Dickerson and John Brack. He has won many awards including the ACI award at the VAS winter exhibition in 1977 and a Diploma for the best ten in composition at the Twenty-Eight Grand Prix International, in France 1977. Coleman died in 1993. His work is represented in the New York Public Library Collection and several regional and private collections in Australia.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist  William /Bill Coleman

Ray Austin Crooke (1922-2015)

Having enjoyed illustrating and drawing from a young age, Ray Crooke joined an advertising agency, enrolling in night classes at the Swinburne Technical College at the age of 15. His position at the advertising agency was short-lived with the commencement of World War 2. Crooke enlisted in the Australian army and for the first time left Victoria. His drawing skills were signaled out and Crooke was assigned the task of map-making.
It was during this time that Crooke saw in the flesh the various locations in the tropics that would feature heavily in his future artworks. Places such as the Cape York Peninsula, Thursday Island and Borneo left a lasting impression and despite the bloodshed of war, Crooke remembered these places as idyllic and isolated.
After the war, Crooke returned to Melbourne and completed his training in drawing and etching at Swinburne Technical College in 1948. Crooke never directly prescribed to any particular movement although the romanticism evident in his works bore similarities with those of the Sydney Charm School. He preferred to work in a solitary environment, though his brief meeting with fellow artist Russell Drysdale in the 1940s was a memorable experience for Crooke and exposed him to paintings of outback landscapes which Crooke would never forget.
For the next decade Crooke focused on drawing and etchings, his early works being influenced by the works of William Blake and Samuel Palmer. He travelled to Thursday Island, the Great Barrier Reef and Moa Island, painting and drawing local scenes. He began to keep detailed illustrated journals that would be used as a reference for future works. It was not until the late 1950s that Crooke began to paint with oils regularly and with this transition came an increasing interest in the impact of colour.
In 1959, Crooke had his first major solo exhibition at Australian Galleries in Melbourne. Following the success of this show he went on to exhibit at Terry Clune Galleries in Sydney in 1960 and at Skinner Galleries in Perth in July of the same year. The success of these early exhibitions allowed Crooke and his family to move to Cairns in 1961 where he was able to paint full-time.
In 1963, Crooke was selected to be a part of a travelling exhibition of Australian painters shown at the Tate Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Crooke’s profile as a leading Australian artist continued to rise and was invited in 1966 to travel to South Vietnam as an official war artist (he declined the appointment). Crooke won the Archibald Prize in 1969 for his portrait of the writer George Johnston.
In 1971 one of Crooke’s religious paintings The Offering was selected by the Vatican Museum to be included in their new gallery of modern religious art. A few years later in 1974, Crooke travelled to London. This trip would become a highly important one in hindsight with the Australian High Commissioner at the time, John Armstrong, commissioning Crooke to paint a series of murals at Australian House in London. A trip to Paris with fellow Australian artist Margaret Olley allowed Crooke to admire the works of artists’ that had influenced his style and technique in the flesh, most notably Gauguin and the Post-Impressionists.
The following year brought both success and heartache to the Crooke family. The large murals of outback scenes were unveiled at Australia House however Ray’s success was sadly dampened with the passing of his daughter, Susan in December.
For the next two decades Crooke would spend much of his time travelling and moving between Sydney and Cairns. In 1993 Crooke was made a member of the Order of Australia for his contributions to the visual arts. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University in 1996 and in 1997 a major retrospective exhibition of Crooke’s work was held at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in Townsville and toured to various locations in Queensland, Canberra and Melbourne.
In 2005 the Cairns Regional Gallery held a travelling exhibition of Crooke’s works titled ‘Encounters with Country: Landscapes of Ray Crooke’. The show was also displayed at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (VIC), Orange Regional Gallery (NSW), S. H. Ervin Gallery (NSW), Queensland University Art Museum (QLD) and the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery (NSW).
Today Crooke’s works can be found in several major collections across the country including the National Gallery (Canberra), the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Hobart), Art Gallery of Western Australia (Perth), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist Ray Crooke

REFERENCES
Smith, S., North of Capricorn: the art of Ray Crooke, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1997, Queensland
Wison, G., Encounters with Country: Landscapes of Ray Crooke, Cairns regional Gallery, 2005, Queensland

Cressida Campbell is a gifted artist who distills the essence of her familiar subjects in watercolour, painted woodblocks and woodblock prints. Conscious of the legacy of Margaret Preston, Campbell portrays beauty in everyday scenes such as domestic still-life, industrial maritime scenes and rooftops overlooking Sydney Harbour.

Cressida Campbell was born in 1960 in Sydney. She studied at East Sydney Technical College and having developed an interest in woodblock printing spent a year at the Yoshida Hanga Academy in Tokyo, Japan. Her works show graphic elements reminiscent of Japanese prints. Her technique is painstaking: first resolving her designs then carving them in plywood, Campbell paints segments of the woodblock in layers of watercolour paint, making as few as a single print from each design.

She exhibited in London in 2001 and again in 2003. She has won numerous awards, including the ACTA Australian Maritime Award, the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award and the AGNSW Trustees Watercolour Prize.

Campbell is represented in National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, State Library of NSW and many regional galleries, and private collections in the UK, USA, Australia and Monaco.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist Cressida Campbell

Criss Canning enrolled at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in 1965 to study art. Although praised for her skill in botanical painting, Canning left RMIT once she had decided she did not wish to pursue this as career. Canning had also studied Graphic Art at the Swinburne Technical College at the same time and after being introduced to the artist Max Middleton in the same year, she enrolled in his evening art class at his Collins Street studio.
For the subsequent years Canning worked several jobs to support her children and her passion for painting. In 1982, her first solo exhibition was held at Fiveways Gallery, Kalorama. Following this success she had her first exhibition the Melbourne Art Exchange in 1983.
In January 1986, Canning left for Europe, first living and painting in Greece before travelling on to Amsterdam and Paris later in the year. When she returned in October, her fourth exhibition with the Melbourne Art Exchange was held titled Impressions of Greece.
The following years saw many of Canning’s works included in important exhibitions including: The 1988 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (Australian National Gallery, Canberra), Australian Flower Paintings 1890-1900 (Trevor Bussell Gallery, Sydney, 1990), Fine Australian Paintings (Melbourne Fine Art Gallery, 1992), Outstanding Oils & Works on Paper (Gould Galleries, Hong Kong, 1992) and Important Australian Women Artists (Melbourne Fine Art Gallery, 1993). In 1995 Canning had a sell-out exhibition at Gould Galleries in Melbourne titled ‘Criss Canning: In and Around Burnside’ and in 1999 Margaret Olley purchased Waratah in a Green Jug and donated it to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This was the first time a work by Canning entered a public gallery.
After the death of her father in 1996, Canning began to paint in a more minimalist fashion. The works she painted in the late 1990s and early 2000s are highly influenced by her love of Japanese art and the geometric designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Canning’s work became increasingly sought after and in 2002 Dame Elisabeth Murdoch opened a solo exhibition at Gould Galleries in South Yarra.
In 2007, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery organized a retrospective exhibition titled ‘Kalianthi: The Art of Criss Canning. The exhibition broke all previous attendance records, 22,700 people attended.
Today Canning’s works are found in several major galleries across Australia including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Ballart Fine Art Gallery, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Cairns Art Gallery.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist Criss Canning

REFERENCES
Thomas, D., Criss Canning: The Pursuit of Beauty, Macmillian, South Yarra, Melbourne, 2007
Criss Canning Website, Artist Bio, http://crisscanning.com.au/artist-bio
Criss Canning. Metro Gallery, online http://metrogallery.com.au/artists/5/criss-canning/

Victor Rubin was born in 1950 in Sydney. He studied from 1966 under Ken Unsworth at Vaucluse Boys High School, from 1967-69 he studied at the Bakery Art School under John Olsen, Bill Rose and Janet Dawson and from 1970-83 he studied at the National Art School (East Sydney Technical College) and Alexander Teachers College where he was awarded Diploma of Art Education. Following this he became a full time art teacher at Narrabeen Boys High School, and then at Randwick Boys High School from 1976-80, during which he was granted leave without pay for a tour of European Galleries. He returned to teaching following this trip. He lived for a short while in the UK from 1988-90 and was an artist in residence at Cite Internationale Des Artes in Paris in 1990. Rubin lives in Melbourne where he continues to teach and paint. Rubin has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize, the Sir John Sulman Prize three times, the Blake Prize and Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He is represented in Australian National Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery NSW, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Queensland Art Gallery, Darwin Art Gallery & Museum, Northern Territory and many regional galleries. Rubin has been credited with 47 solo exhibitions since 1971.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist Victor Rubin

Roland Wakelin was born in 1887 at Grey town in the Wairarapa Valley, New Zealand. In 1902 his family moved to Wellington where Wakelin spent two years at Wellington College. In 1904 Wakelin spent three months as an office boy and then received civil service appointment to Stamp Office. In his spare time he studied painting at the Wellington Technical School under Henri Bastings and would holiday to Sydney. In 1910 he held his first exhibition at New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington. Wakelin left New Zealand to live in Sydney in 1912, enrolling in classes at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales. His teachers included Antonio Dattilo Rubbo and Norman Carter. When not at classes he worked at the Federal Land Tax Office. At the end of 1913 he met and married Estelle Robinson. During this time he was creating divisionist works in bright colours, perhaps inspired by Cezanne, Gaugin, Cubism or futurism to which he had been exposed. Wakelin served on the council of the Royal Art Society of NSW for one year during 1916. Roy de Maistre and Wakelin began an artistic collaboration in 1918 which would produce the first of Australia’s abstract works, inspired by the relationship between colour and music. The following year, Max Meldrum visited Sydney and Wakelin was attracted to his theory of tonalism, and began painting large tonalist works. In 1922 Wakelin sailed to London for three years where he worked as freelance commercial artists, also travelling to Paris. He saw the work of many artists, but Van Gogh, Gaughin and Cezanne particularly inspired his work over the next few years. On returning to Sydney in 1924, the family lived first in Dee Why then in Chatswood, where he gave Saturday classes for about a year, North Sydney and in 1939 Potts Point. 1934 he was elected to membership of the Society of Artists. His work became more romantic, depicting the harbour and intimate subjects of domestic life. In 1947 Wakelin was awarded the Society of Artists Medal jointly with George Bell and in November exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society where he became one of two vice presidents. Wakelin became a leading figure in the Sydney modernist movement exhibiting annually. In 1950 Wakelin oved to Melbourne for a year, teaching at the National Gallery School before travelling to New Zealand and then back to Sydney. In Sydney he became an Instructor in art at the School of Architecture, University of Sydney, where he taught until 1969, and he also began private classes. In 1953 he became a tutor for the Department of Adult Education and a lecturer for WEA, moving to Rose Bay and then to Double Bay. In 1986 Wakelin travelled to England, Holland, France and Italy for seven months. He received the International Co-operation Art ward in 1966. After a stroke he moved back to a ground floor flat in Rose Bay, and he died in May 1971. Wakelin exhibited extensively worldwide for over 40 years, exhibiting with both The Contemporary Group and The London Group and had a major retrospective in 1967 at the Art Gallery NSW. His works are held in the National Gallery Canberra, National Portrait Gallery, Art Gallery NSW, and many other state and regional galleries.

All artwork for sale on this page is by Australian artist Roland Wakelin